A Good Man

They wheeled him past us.  We stood together, apart, in that corridor.  This moment I have buried within me for all my life.  The moment our hearts broke, a collective sound.

*
My brother told me he got wind of the graffiti on the bus-stop seat.  He sat there and using a coin, patiently scratched away all the slander that held my name.

*
When my phone vibrates, my hands are full of soap and dirty dishes.  I think to myself, it's him, my friend, saying he won't make it to the party.  But it's not him, nor him, it's her, my forever friend, my sister, my family.  I call her back immediately.

*
His mother leans her head against the glass separating them.  She tells him, I love you, I love you.  She wills him back, her body shuddering in sorrow.  One of us steps out of the room.  I step further behind.  We fold our arms tightly as if trying to contain all our grief.  A terrible, terrible thing has happened, and there is nothing anyone can say or do to make things better, or right again.

*
Many years passed.  One day he came searching for me in Los Angeles.  He said he needed to ask me something, that he had given much thought.

*
I am not the person he had imagined.  I tell him, you don't know me any more.  He hides the gift.  Childhood friendships allow for misjudgement, for forgiveness, for loss.  We stay friends.

*
Yesterday I asked my husband to come with me, to speak with his mother and his wife.  My husband has a kind, calm voice.  He can read charts and scans and translate them to all of us, gently.  We need to know, so we know what else can be done, or how to be, or for me, what exactly to pray for.

*
When he had trouble speaking, he told his friend who was with him to tell his wife that he loved her.  Tell her I love her.  I love her.

*
She tells me she does not know if she has made the right decision the day before.  She adds that the decision she made has however, given her one more day with him.  We hold each other and we cry and we laugh, and we cry.  We say everything and we say nothing.  She tells me, she wants to take him home so that she can take care of him for the rest of their lives.

*
I want to remember you the way we all remember you- happy, full of mirth, besotted with your wife and family.  All of us who grew up with you, each have our own story to tell.  Yours is too bright, too original a presence to ever be blown away.  Your wife says it best.  She says- you are a good man.  You truly are a good man.